“Indeed it is. Good thing we’re all cozied up together, isn’t it, my dear?”

Lord Maccon pursed his lips, trying to decide what to do. He had not intended to sleep the whole day through but had wanted to be on his way back to the dungeons before moonrise. “I left orders for Lyall and Channing to transport Biffy back to Woolsey before sunset, but I really should get there myself.”

“Too late now—the moon is up.”

He grunted, annoyed with himself. “Would you mind terribly taking the journey with me? The wine cellar here might hold a new pup, but it won’t hold me. And I should be with him, tonight of all nights. Even moonstruck myself, my presence will soothe him. Besides, I can’t imagine you want to stay attached to me all night.”

Alexia blinked at him flirtatiously. “You know, under more slender circumstances, I wouldn’t mind spending an evening thus occupied, but I really must be getting on with this investigation. I need to return some paperwork to Madame Lefoux, and I’m back to square one questioning the ghosts. I do wish this pregnancy didn’t make me so abstracted. I keep missing things, and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be so easily sidetracked by history.”

Lord Maccon didn’t bother trying to argue. Given her ankle and her pregnancy, his wife was in no condition to do any such thing as continue an active inquiry. It was full moon. What could he do to see her safe except have her tailed? Which, naturally, he’d been doing for the past five weeks. For one moment, he did consider coming up with some kind of excuse to keep her at Woolsey even while he, himself, was incapacitated.

Instead, he growled out, “Very well. But, please, take some precautionary measures?”

Lady Maccon grinned. “Oh, my love, but that is so very boring.”

Lord Maccon growled again.

Alexia kissed the tip of his nose. “I’ll be good, I promise.”

“Why is it that I am always at my most terrified when you say that?”

* * *

Above the ghost, under a full moon, the living celebrated being alive.

Mortals trotted about in shoes and corsets made to limit movement, fashion for prey. They drank (becoming pickled as any gherkin) and puffed at cigars (becoming smoked as any kipper), behaving like the food they were. Silly, thought the ghost, that they couldn’t see such simple comparisons.

Immortals saluted the full moon with blood, some in crystal glasses, others by tearing into meat and howling. Aside from the ancient Greeks and their long-ago offerings, there was no blood for ghosts. Not anymore.

The ghost could hear herself crying. Not the herself that still remembered what being herself meant. Some other part of her, the part that was fading into aether.

She wished she had studied more on the nature of the supernatural and less on the nature of the technological world. She wished her passions had taken her into a learning that would allow her to tolerate the sensation of disanimus with dignity. But there was no dignity in death.